A lot of people are keeping an eye on the Bombardier CSeries as it continues its test flight campaign – Lufthansa in particular has noted the aircraft is meeting its performance expectations.
Bombardier CSeries FTV1 and FTV2 at Montréal–Mirabel Airport. Image, Bombardier Aerospace.
The CSeries flew for the first time in September 2013 (a day before the Boeing 787-9 took to the air), and has been involved in tests since then as part of the campaign to certificate the design.
Lufthansa is an important customer – and additionally the launch customer of the aircraft, as the 30 CS100 aircraft they have on order will be heading for Swiss International Airlines to replace the existing Avro RJ-100 aircraft that are used in the European fleet. These will be configured with 125 seats each.
Whilst the performance of the plane is meeting expectations, sadly the delivery date has been slipping a bit as development of the plane continues, with entry into service now estimated to be in the 2nd half of 2015 – with the project 15 months behind.
This wasn’t helped with the first flight being delayed, and the analysis that went into it before the second flight could take to the air.
Bombardier currently have two CS100s in its test cadre at the moment, with CS300s due to join the fleet at a later date.
Currently, Bombardier has orders for 198 CSeries aircraft, split by:
- CS100 – 63 Aircraft
- CS300 – 135 Aircraft
As entry into service slips, other airlines will still be keeping a close eye on the project’s progress to see if the aircraft meets expectations that are held of it.
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